


Step 5: ???

by CatrinaSL



Series: Three Things [128]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Movie Night, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Cockblock Tony Stark, Domestic Avengers, F/F, Flirting, Implied Sexual Content, Interviews, RPF Avengers fic (written in-universe), SHIP DARCY LEWIS WITH ALL THE THINGS, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis, Six-Point Plan, Standard Background Checks, Steve hates microwave popcorn, Superfan Natasha Romanov, Three Things, Tony Being Tony, Writer Darcy Lewis, cleavage, vetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL
Summary: Darcy discovers what she wants that fifth step in her six point plan to be.





	Step 5: ???

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aleph (Immatrael)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immatrael/gifts).



> Aleph (Immatrael) prompted RPF Avengers fic (written in-universe), Standard background checks, A six-point plan.

"I know I'm already as good as hired," Darcy told her interviewer. "But I prepared a 'where do you see yourself in five years' thing anyway."

The woman looked amused, but said nothing. Instead, she waved her hand, inviting Darcy to continue.

"Okay. So." Darcy pulled her presentation out from under the chair and set the trifold on the desk in front of her, leaning in like she planned (the "accidental" cleavage was her secret weapon). "It's more of a six-point plan."

The interviewer nodded, her eyes on the presentation and not on Darcy's chest.

_Curses. Foiled again._

"Well, obviously, I'll begin by continuing to assist Doctor Foster." She pointed to the picture of Jane she'd taken the night before in the lab. Jane was passed out on the table, her hand still poised to take notes on some science. It was adorable. "Secondly, I thought I'd work my way onto Doctor Banner's 'indispensable people' list. He seems pretty put together science-wise, plus I saw him leave the lab at 5:30 p.m. yesterday. So it's not like he needs someone to carry him to bed or anything, but I figure he _might_ appreciate having someone to tell him how amazing he is every once in a while. For a science guy with who-knows-how-many doctorates, the man has no visible ego."

The interviewer still seemed interested, so Darcy pushed on.

"Tony Stark is my third and next move. His stuff probably needs less babysitting than Jane's does, and the man himself, from what I've seen, just needs to be headed off when he starts to get too deep in the science so that he doesn't end up doing something like creating a murder robot that destroys the world. In a lot of ways he's completely the opposite of Banner: he needs an assistant that isn't going to take his shit or contribute to his ego at all. I'm thinking sass and a complete lack of respect for his position. It's worked well for me in the past."

The interviewer nodded.

The fourth thing on Darcy's list were the words, "baked goods," accompanied by picture of some muffins she had made the week before. That part pretty much spoke for itself, so Darcy gestured at it and waited for the interviewer to acknowledge it before she moved on.

The final two points on her list were:

  1. ???
  2. Profit



"That's basically all, thanks for coming to my TedTalk," Darcy concluded.

The interviewer appeared to be attempting to hide a smile. "You've thought this out," she said.

Darcy grinned proudly.

"But..." the woman continued. "I would like to hear what your plan is in the event that you don't pass the standard background check and the other things that our vetting process calls for."

Darcy hadn't been expecting that question, but it wasn't like she wasn't prepared to answer it anyway.

"RPF," she replied nonchalantly.

The interviewer looked baffled for the first time. "You're going to... go work for the Ministry of Railways in India?"

Darcy laughed. "No, it's a thing," she assured the interviewer. "It's fiction, but about real people. RPF."

The interviewer blinked at her in confusion. "Your plan is to... write fiction about the Avengers?"

"Totally," Darcy replied. "People love that stuff. And I gotta say, I've been hanging out in the Avengers common area nearly every day for the past two weeks. My characterization would be on point. I could make bank."

The interviewer pushed her chair away from the desk and stood to shake Darcy's hand. "We can talk about NDAs later, but I'm feeling confident enough to say you're hired."

Darcy tried not to look too excited as she took the woman's hand and shook.

"But I need you to tell me if there are any featuring Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers."

Darcy grinned. "It's one of the most popular pairings."

* * *

Three weeks later, Clint flopped onto the couch next to Darcy.

"Nat's driving me nuts," he complained. "She keeps dropping out of vents—"

"Which is _your_ thing," Darcy put in.

"I know, right?!" Clint huffed.

"When am I going to get to meet her?" Darcy asked.

"I thought you guys had met," Clint mused. "She knows _you_. You're the one who turned her on to that stuff on the internet that she can't get enough of. Which brings me back to my original complaining: she keeps dropping out of vents and reading scenes from, like, smut that someone wrote about Steve and Tony. This morning I asked her to stop, but she found one starring me and Thor, and—"

Darcy's eyes went wide and she covered his mouth with her hand. "Time out," she said. "What do you mean _I_ told the Black Widow about RPF? The only person I've talked to about it recently was... the person who interviewed me..."

Clint was looking back at her with his eyebrow raised.

"Oh my god, does that mean...?"

The top half of Clint's face said, 'duh.'

"I gotta go," Darcy squeaked, then released him and ran out of the room.

* * *

Darcy was throwing things in a bag at random, still trying to decide if Timbuktu was a) a real place and b) if she could somehow buy a bus ticket there, would it be far enough away to hide from _the Black Widow_?

And that's when she heard it.

A small sound, but one she had heard before, when the woman who had interviewed her cleared her throat as they sat down at the beginning of the interview.

Darcy turned.

Leaning in the doorway of her bedroom was unmistakably Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.

She was also unmistakably the person who had interviewed Darcy.

"So," she began, when Darcy just stared. "I've been reading a few of those stories you recommended."

"You had black hair when we met. How come you had black hair?" Darcy babbled.

"I'm a spy," the Black Widow explained, as though it should have been obvious. "When you said your backup plan was to write RPF, I took that to mean that you would start writing it if the job didn't work out... Not that you _already did_."

Darcy tried to reply, but whatever she was going to say just came out as a squeak.

"You're quite prolific..." the Black Widow continued, meandering into Darcy's room and glancing at the duffel bag on the bed. "It wasn't too hard to find you, either. Then again, 'dlew89' is a fairly obvious pen name. I really enjoyed your recent work featuring Thor and Hawkeye. Clint's not a fan, but Thor liked it."

"Oh my god," Darcy moaned, covering her face with her hands. This was a nightmare. If she'd read _that_ , then she'd probably read—

She should have packed faster.

"My favorite is actually _Saturday Night Seduction_ , the Black Widow/Reader story? Where everyone else goes to bed one by one, but the Widow and the main character stay in the common room to... enjoy one another's company? Remember that one?"

Darcy nodded. She'd written in London it at 2 am one night after staying up late listening to Thor talk about his compatriots, Natasha in particular. She'd translated his words of praise at her martial prowess into her own fantasy about the Black Widow's bedroom prowess.

It was quiet, so Darcy assumed that the Black Widow was waiting for her to speak. She cleared her throat and managed to croak out, "I can be gone in a couple of hours."

"That's impressive," the Widow replied. "But why?"

"Because I'm probably super fired? For somehow violating all those NDAs I signed?"

Black Widow laughed. "You're not, and you haven't," she told Darcy. "Not even in the stories you've written since moving in here. You keep it vague and nonspecific, like the one with Steve and Tony at the boat house. It's one of the reasons I like you."

Darcy's brain short-circuited, but it was impossible to tell whether it was due to the fact that the Black Widow had read one of her least popular stories or that she'd just said she _liked Darcy_.

Maybe it was the interview cleavage.

"So don't go anywhere. Just keep doing what you're doing. And... maybe some Saturday, if we find ourselves on the couch in the common room after everyone else calls it a night..."

When Darcy turned to look at her face and see if she was serious, the Widow was gone.

* * *

"I'm never watching a Hunger Games movie with you people ever again," Tony vowed.

Clint (the main reason behind the sentiment) threw a pillow at him, and Tony threw one back. Steve, instead of stopping them, laughed and dodged out of the way when Thor tossed one at him.

"No pillow fights unless we're having a sleepover!" Darcy announced. "Also I'm carrying popcorn and if any of you jerks make me spill it I'm making you eat all of it off the floor."

Steve made a face; he hated microwave popcorn.

Darcy passed the bowl to Clint, who set it on the coffee table while she jumped over the back of the couch. "So what are we watching next?"

"I dunno, Darcy," Steve said, fending off a pillow flung at him by Tony. "It's getting late. I should head to bed."

"And I," Thor chimed. "Jane should get her rest."

Jane and Bruce were sitting at the dining room table, still working. That was the arrangement: it still counted as attending Movie Night as long as they were in the room, nobody demanded that they actually pay attention to the movie.

Clint stretched and let out a long sigh. "I'm going to the range. I have to bleach all that terrible Hollywood archery from my brain by watching someone with superior skills."

"They put a mirror on the ceiling in there, or something?" Darcy asked.

"That's a great idea," Clint said with a wink. "I should talk to the landlord about that.

Tony rolled his eyes, and Clint stood and grabbed a handful of popcorn for the road at the same time that Thor got up to retrieve Jane.

"I almost beat him in a game of darts last week," Tony said, when Clint was out of earshot.

"No you didn't," Bruce put in. He stood and stretched as Thor carried Jane off.

"Well, I... came closer than I ever have to not _completely_ embarrassing myself," Tony insisted.

"Keep telling yourself that," Steve said with a grin, as he too stood and stretched.

"Are you serious?" Darcy asked them. "You're not gonna stay and watch _The Martian_ with me?"

"I don't think Nat's seen it," Steve said, glancing behind Darcy.

"Nat—?" Darcy began, turning in the direction he was looking.

But the couch dipped beside her, and when Darcy turned back, Natasha was sitting there, shoveling a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

"It's like Clint never left," Tony remarked, but Darcy disagreed. Sitting next to the Black Widow was a totally different experience.

Clint was her bro.

Natasha was _dangerous_.

"Goodnight," Steve called, waving as he exited.

"Where'd Bruce go?" Tony asked.

"He went to bed," Natasha told him. "Or back to the lab; I didn't ask."

Tony sighed and took over the entire couch he and Steve had been sharing. "So are we gonna watch this movie or what?"

Darcy had never been more preoccupied during a movie in her life.

Natasha seemed unbothered, and consumed the entire bowl of popcorn, laughed during the funny parts, and continually searched for the most comfortable way to lounge on the couch _without_ touching Darcy.

_And Tony wouldn't leave._

As the movie ended, Darcy realized that he had fallen asleep, so she whacked him in the head with a pillow.

"Wha?"

"Wake up, you ass," Darcy said.

"Wha'd I do?" Tony slurred.

"Go to bed," she hissed.

"Yes, dear," Tony mumbled, and fell off the couch.

Natasha laughed, and Darcy watched Natasha while Natasha watched Tony stumble out of the room in the direction of the elevators.

"So what do you want to do now?" Natasha asked.

"I... think maybe... bed?" Darcy ventured.

"That's a great idea," Natasha told her.

But they ended up staying on the couch.

 _Saturday Night Seduction_ didn't come close to the real thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Timbuktu is a real place. But you can't hide from the Black Widow there. _You can't hide from the Black Widow **anywhere**_.
> 
> [Prompt a Three Things fic!](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf7S2MbkK0CxVHMG3kF8CD6fYqD0zwY-J6MqLb21nmFyRpE4w/viewform)
> 
> [Reblog on tumblr](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com/post/172069265868/step-5)
> 
> Tumblr: [catrinasl](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com)
> 
> Twitter: [@Catrina_SL](http://twitter.com/Catrina_SL)


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